Inside Pauley Perrette’s Dramatic Exit From NCIS

‘NCIS’ Actress Pauley Perrette Reveals Why She Would “Never” Return to Acting

Just like that, NCIS has been on for 21 years.

The CBS procedural about the trials and tribulations of the titular Naval Criminal Investigative Services premiered in 2003 and has been one of the most-watched scripted shows on TV ever since, chugging along in the face of external obstacles like cord-cutting and an ever-shifting entertainment landscape and internal upheaval such as major cast shake-ups.  

And prior to the departure of original star Mark Harmon in 2021, the most dramatic exit by far was that of Pauley Perrette, who had played fan-favorite forensics expert Abby Sciuto from the beginning.

While OGs such as Michael Weatherly had preceded her in moving on to other projects, no lead-up to the inevitable was as fraught as Perrette’s farewell in May 2018, which sparked a mystery of its own that has never been fully explained.

But her departure itself wasn’t a surprise. Perrette—who nowadays considers herself retired from acting—tweeted in October 2017 that season 15 would be her last.

“After a lot of thought, I decided to announce it myself on Twitter because I didn’t want it to be turned into anything ‘shocking,'” she explained to TV Insider in April 2018. “Abby leaving is more than a cheap TV ploy.”

Robert Voets/CBS via Getty Images

Still, she had said in 2016 as NCIS’ 14th season got underway that “there’s not a single day I don’t wake up and I’m just so overwhelmed with being grateful,” telling Hollywood Today Live, “I’m so happy. I love my job, I can’t believe I get to play Abby Sciutto!” 

Asked about the show’s sparse number of Emmy nominations (the total was three at the time, and so it has remained), the actress said that she’d rather be home on any night with her dogs, beer in hand and paychecks in the bank, than be “in a big uncomfortable dress standing in the sun and someone handing me an award.”

By the time she left the show, however, Perrette seemingly had a different take on what she was leaving behind. And a week after her final episode aired the actress decided she’d had enough of whatever the Internet had come up with to explain her decision to leave.

Kevin Lynch/CBS

“I refused to go low, that’s why I’ve never told publicly what happened,” Perrette tweeted May 12, 2018 (on what was then Twitter). “But there are tabloid articles out there that are telling total lies about me. If you believe them? Please leave me alone. You clearly don’t know me. (Sorry guys, had to be said).”

The self-described “Twitter-aholic” continued in the early hours of May 13, “Maybe I’m wrong for not ‘spilling the beans’ Telling the story, THE TRUTH. I feel I have to protect my crew, jobs and so many people. But at what cost? I.don’t know. Just know, I’m trying to do the right thing, but maybe silence isn’t the right thing about crime. I’m… Just… ?” Then, 20 minutes later, “There is a ‘machine’ keeping me silent, and feeding FALSE stories about me. A very rich, very powerful publicity ‘machine’. No morals, no obligation to truth, and I’m just left here, reading the lies, trying to protect my crew. Trying to remain calm. He did it.”

Two hours later, she added: “I’ve been supporting anti-bullying programs forever. But now I KNOW because it was ME! If it’s school or work, that you’re required to go to? It’s horrifying. I left. Multiple Physical Assaults. I REALLY get it now. Stay safe. Nothing is worth your safety. Tell someone.”

CBS Television Studios responded quickly to those loaded tweets, telling E! News in a statement, “Pauley Perrette had a terrific run on NCIS and we are all going to miss her. Over a year ago, Pauley came to us with a workplace concern. We took the matter seriously and worked with her to find a resolution. We are committed to a safe work environment on all our shows.”

Perrette then responded on Twitter, “I want to thank my studio and network CBS They have always been so good to me and always had my back.”

But viewers who analyzed every second of her send-off hadn’t missed the fact that Abby and Harmon’s Special Agent in Charge Leroy Gibbs hadn’t shared screen time all season. Abby even said goodbye to Gibbs in a note.

Sonja Flemming/CBS

The Wrap reported days later that a rift between Perrette and Harmon opened up in October 2016 after she confronted him when he allegedly continued to bring his dog to work after it bit a crew member, who needed stitches. (An attorney for Harmon told The Wrap that the dog did not return to set.)

After the confrontation, a source told the publication, “she did her scenes on one day and he did his work on other days, and they still produced a great show. It was simply scheduled that they did not work the same days.”

CBS

Ultimately, whatever hastened her exit, Perrette sounded genuinely sorrowful about leaving

“It makes me sad to imagine a world without Abby in it, Perrette told CBS News in April 2018. “It really makes me sad. I’m still grieving…I, like, usually cry in my car every single day when I drive to work. And I usually cry on my way home at some point. And then I take a deep breath, and I go, ‘All right,’ you know?'”

She was as proud as ever of her brainy, confident character whose inspiring effect on girls wanting to study math and science became known as the “Abby effect.” Perrette added, “Abby made science cool and attainable for young women. And this television character did more than encourage it. It made it cool. It made it exciting. It made it fun.”

She was repeatedly voted the most-liked female star on prime-time TV, and she went out on top, too. But it sounded as though real life events were weighing heavily on the actress in the months leading up to her exit announcement.

Before the dog incident, NCIS showrunner Gary Glasberg had died suddenly in September 2016, leaving the entire production in mourning. Perrette tweeted, “Our hearts are collectively broken.”

Then in January 2017, apparently while watching the SAG Awards, she got fired up over politics, her dad being in the hospital, her dog recovering from surgery and the clamor from some corners for celebrities to stay in their lane.

“You think my thoughts don’t matter because I’m an actor?” she tweeted. “I had thoughts when I worked for a car lot, Taco Bell, was a bartender, and worked as a cook assistant in the bottom of a boat in a foot of dirty dish water… My (VERY REPUBLICAN) dad is in the ER and I’m terrified because I love him so much, politics don’t stop my daddy love. I’m his little kid scared to death right now. My dog is in surgery and intense rehab. And I’m scared. My boss died suddenly and his memorial was today and I miss him and it sux. Three of my friends died this year.” 

Perrette added, “Does this seem like ‘CELEBRITY PROBLEMS?'”

Born in New Orleans in 1969, Perrette went to high school in Georgia, where she was crowned homecoming queen and voted Best Personality and Most Easygoing her senior year.

She studied sociology, psychology and criminology in college with designs on possibly becoming an FBI agent, but ended up moving to New York, where she tended bar and did other odd jobs before the right introduction to a director led to a load of commercial work. 

On CBS This Morning in 2015, Perrette called her acting career a “total accident.”

Eventually she moved to L.A. and not long after making her TV debut on an ABC Afterschool Special she landed a recurring role on the second season of the critically acclaimed Stephen Bochco drama Murder One. It didn’t go past a second season, but Perrette kept going.

Recurring guest roles on Frasier and The Drew Carey Show eventually turned into Perrette landing the role of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s quirky apartment manager on the Party of Five spin-off The Time of Your Life.

FOX

That job didn’t last, either, but Perrette—whose raven-dyed hair (she’s a natural blonde), tattoos and subtly raspy voice came to signify the smart/sassy/sarcastic supporting role—was only a couple years away from a two-episode stint as Abby on the CBS military legal drama J.A.G. The rest is synergistic history.

“We’ve been on an upward trajectory since the beginning,” a beaming Perrette said on CBS’ The Early Show in 2011, “and it just has kept growing and growing and growing. It’s been incredible, and the cast and the crew all love our show and we’re just nothing but grateful and happy. It’s the greatest job.”

CBS

Told that the show’s success of late pretty much all boiled down to her, she shook her head bashfully, insisting, “It’s all about everybody…The collective effort of everyone making the show, and also the fact that we all love our show and we’re all having a blast is what it’s all about.”

But mulling her character’s impact in 2018, she mused to USA Today, “I think, after all these years, an older generation might look at someone with tattoos and instead of thinking they’re a thug, they maybe think they’re a scientist.”

Larry Busacca/Getty Images for NARAS

On the personal front, Perrette got engaged to former British Royal Marine turned aspiring actor Thomas Arklie on Christmas Day in 2011, but she said on multiple occasions (as a number of celebrities did during this period) that they wouldn’t get married until same-sex marriage was legally recognized as well.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional on June 26, 2015, paving the way for gay couples to tie the knot in every state, Perrette was one of a number of betrothed stars whose path to the aisle finally looked clear.

“We have been engaged for four years because we worked for a federal marriage-equality law, and that Friday was the strangest day,” Perrette, a longtime LGBTQ+ rights activist, told FOX411 a month later. “My life as a civil rights activist and as a straight ally has been marching, speaking, donating, marching, donating, speaking, marching, speaking, rally, holding poster signs, and then it was over. It was so weird.”

A number of her gay friends were getting married, she said, but she admittedly hadn’t thought about herself yet.

“There are certain benefits [to marriage],” Perrette said. “With us, we have different insurance and things. There are certain benefits that we would have from being married, and every time I thought about it, I thought, ‘How many same-gender couples have been together 25 years and can certainly benefit from that, too?’ So, for me, now, it’s pretty exciting.”

Vince Bucci/Getty Images

By then she was also fully aware of the downsides. She was previously married to Coyote Shivers rocker Francis Shivers from 2000 until their separation in 2004. Their divorce was finalized in 2006 but she secured a restraining order against him first in 2005.

According to court documents, per the New York Post, it was granted due to a “history of emotional abuse,” and then renewed multiple times. Shivers was arrested for violating the order in April 2012 after he and his wife Mayra showed up at the same L.A. restaurant as his ex-wife, and he in turn accused her in a court filing of using restraining orders as a means of harassment.

“For years, I’ve been saying that this was going to happen—in court documents, in police reports,” Shivers, facing jail time for the violation, told the Post in 2013.

Without ever referring to her ex-husband by name, Perrette talked to 48 Hours in 2017 for a special on stalking. “I have a permanent restraining order, but those can only do so much,” she said. “The biggest problem we have right now is that the stalking laws have not been updated since the Internet. That is just ridiculous because a lot of stalkers use the Internet, that’s their main tool. There’s a lot we have to get changed but especially Internet stalking laws.”

In 2008 Shivers was deemed a “vexatious litigant” by the state of California—meaning, he was judged to be trying to use the legal system to harass or manipulate. Talking to Fox News, he called Perrette “a serial false accuser.”

Perrette was also briefly engaged to NCIS cameraman Michael Bosman, whom she started dating in 2005 while her divorce proceedings were underway. And she never did meet Arklie at the altar.

“Nope. Tried it. Not for me. Not at all,” she told CBS News in April 2018 when asked about her love life. Asked if she was happier in the wake of that realization, she replied, “Delighted. Probably the best decision I ever made in my life was the time that it took me to go like, ‘Wait a minute. This is silly. I don’t have to have a boyfriend, or a husband, or a girlfriend, or anything, you know?’ I don’t need any of that. Like, I do whatever I want. I do whatever I want. And I think that is rad.”

Instead her home was full of four-legged love, her beloved rescue dogs on hand when she sat down with CBS News before Abby’s final episode aired.

“They’re so totally my kids!” she exclaimed. “My whole life is about them. Everybody’s, like, ‘Hey, you wanna gonna out?’ And I’m, like, ‘No, ’cause that would take me away from my dogs!'”

Really missing my mom today and really loving my #RescueDogs Happy Mother’s Day to moms of humans and animals. pic.twitter.com/fuVz5zhLdI

— Pauley Perrette (@PauleyP) May 14, 2018

Meanwhile, fame became a mixed bag for Perrette, who expressed endless gratitude for her fans but didn’t particularly enjoy the scrutiny that comes with being a celebrity.

“Everybody’s really nice and very excited—people get excited to see Abby,” she told CBS News in 2011. “I’m not Abby on a random Saturday.” Perrette added, smiling, “It’s a phenomenon, definitely.” She used to have “little tricks” to avoid being recognized, but “they don’t work anymore. It’s over.”

She sounded more jaded on the subject by the time she left NCIS. “It’s being a commodity,” she said in April 2018. “It’s just very dehumanizing. I hope I’m not wrong, but I think that I have earned a little bit of time to myself. Just stay home. Go to church.”

However, she noted, “I gotta say, church is not the place to go chase down your favorite celebrity, I’m just throwin’ it out there. Hospitals, bathrooms, churches, please do not chase down your favorite celebrity at any of these places!”

Monty Brinton/CBS

Still, she appreciated her fans so much, she refused to change her signature ‘do even when her life depended on it.

A decade of at-home dye jobs ultimately resulted in Perrette acquiring a PPD allergy, which at first just caused scalp irritation but—as she wanted to get the word out there to fans—can be fatal if you don’t change your routine.

She shared on The Queen Latifah Show in 2015 that she was relying on black hairspray to keep the look going. “But now Abby has black nails ’cause if I touch my head it looks like I’ve been digging in a coal mine,” she quipped. But the world wasn’t ready for a blond Abby, she insisted.

“I’m a little Abby-obsessed, I love her so much and I want to be her when I grow up,” Perrette said, to much applause. “There’s just something about that character that’s almost like an anime…She’s always looked the same and you don’t want to see a big change…Like you don’t want to see Charlie Brown with a big head of hair! That would be weird, right?” (She eventually found coloring technology “that’s smarter than I am.”)

Simon & Schuster

Perrette’s big heart was in evidence in other arenas, as well: She wrote the song “Beautiful Child” to benefit efforts to prevent suicide among LBGTQ+ teens. She set up scholarship funds at her alma mater, Valdosta State University in Georgia, and New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Science for students wanting to study forensics. In 2015 she co-authored the cookbook Donna Bell’s Bakeshop, named after the New York bakery opened and run by some friends in honor of her late mother, who died of breast cancer in 2002.

“My mom was such a wonderful lady, I lost her way too early,” Perrette said on CBS This Morning. “And I think anybody…no matter how old you are, it doesn’t matter, when you lose your mom you feel like an orphan. You feel really kind of…” She mimed feeling out of sorts. “For my friends who are fortunate enough to haven’t had this happen to them yet, my heart hurts for them.”

In November 2015, Perrette was physically assaulted on a Hollywood street by a homeless man and while she was admittedly traumatized she took the opportunity to address bigger societal issues at hand.

CBS

“My life changed tonight. My…I don’t know,” she tweeted. “We need full mental health care. We need housing and help for the homeless. We need to support our cops. We need to not walk alone. I need to heal.”

The man was arrested and eventually charged with making a criminal threat and false imprisonment by violence.

“My heart broke for him,” Perrette wrote in an essay for Motto a few months later. “My tears that night were for him. I had looked into his eyes. There was nothing there. It seemed like his soul and his humanity were gone,” she wrote. “He was out on the street without resources. It was a consequence of our failure as a society to take care of our mentally ill and impaired homeless community.”

She continued, “Of course I forgive him. I have no anger, only sadness. He didn’t know who I was, he didn’t know who he was. He is very confused, he’s homeless and he needs help.”

Jason Merritt/Staff

She reflected to People in December 2016, “There were a lot of feelings and a lot of emotions, but I feel like at the end of it all, as strange as it sounds, if that incident had to happen in the universe, I feel like it had to be me. I feel like it was supposed to be me somehow because I have a lot of experience working with the homeless, working with the mentally ill. This instance, de-escalation that had to happen right then.”

However, the actress expressed fear in February 2018 after her attacker, who had been committed to a state psychiatric institution, was released.

“It changed my life forever,” she said in a statement to Fox 11 News. “I don’t walk outside my house. I think it’s entirely possible that the next word I hear about this guy is that he’ll kill a female.”

So all of that was going on as she also prepared to leave the place that had been her second home for 15 years.

But despite the door being left open in case Abby happened to be in the neighborhood, Perrette let it be known in June 2019 that she had no plans to return to NCIS, full stop.

“NO I AM NOT COMING BACK! EVER! (Please stop asking?)” she tweeted. “I am terrified of Harmon and him attacking me. I have nightmares about it. I have a new show that is SAFE AND HAPPY! You’ll love it!”

At the time she was returning to CBS, though, as the star of the sitcom Broke.

“I can’t speak to what she’s addressing in her tweets,” CBS Entertainment President Kelly Kahl told reporters after a 2019 Television Critics Association summer press tour panel. “She did come to us a couple years ago with a workplace concern. We immediately investigated it and we resolved it to everyone’s satisfaction.”

Kahl added, “We are very happy to have her on the air again this year with us and I don’t think she would be back with us if she had huge concerns.”

Broke only lasted one season, but Perrette tweeted after news of its cancellation that it had been a healing experience.

MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images

“This show restored my faith in people, in this industry,” she wrote in May 2020. “SO GRATEFUL I worked with this cast & crew Best people I’ve EVER worked with. Healed me. Changed me. Made me whole. So Blessed.”

That remains Perrette’s last acting role to date, and she recently said that she has no plans to pursue another.

“I’m not ungrateful for the benefits that [acting] gave to me,” the 55-year-old told HELLO!  in an article published Oct. 1. “But I’m a different person now and I want to be here for it—the good and the bad and the painful. I want to be me all the time, and it takes a good amount of courage for me to say that to myself but it’s authentically how I feel.”

And so her departure from NCIS remains an episode with an ambiguous ending. But Perrette is not alone in deciding to leave a show that’s still riding high. See all the stars who left a hit series:

Katrina Marcinowski/HBO Max

Reneé Rapp, The Sex Lives of College Girls

Ahead of The Sex Lives of College Girls’ third season, Reneé Rapp announced she would be leaving the Max series. 

“College Girls moved me out to LA and introduced me to some of my favorite people,” she wrote on social media July 10. “2 and a half years later—it’s given me y’all and this community.”

The show’s co-creator Mindy Kaling also confirmed Rapp’s exit. “We love @reneerapp so much and of course will be so sad to say goodbye to Leighton Murray!” Kaling wrote on her Instagram Stories before referencing Rapp’s thriving music career. “We can’t wait to see our friend on tour!!”

Paramount Network

Kevin Costner, Yellowstone

More than a year after the actor was rumored to have unexpectedly walked away from the hit Paramount drama after four and a half seasons, he confirmed in June 2024 that he will not return to finish out the series’ fifth and final season.

ABC

Ellen Pompeo, Grey’s Anatomy

After 19 years as Meredith Grey, Ellen Pompeo scrubbed in for the last time as a series regular on the ABC drama in the Feb. 23 episode. 

“I gotta mix it up a little bit,” Pompeo explained on The Drew Barrymore Show in December of last year, though she has already returned for a May guest appearance and continues narrating the series. “I’m 53, my brain is like scrambled eggs. I gotta do something new. You can’t do The New York Times crossword puzzle every single day.”

Susie Allnutt/Netflix

Henry Cavill, The Witcher

Batman vs. Superman star Henry Cavill revealed he would be stepping away from the Netflix fantasy drama after its third season—with the announcement that Liam Hemsworth will assume the role of Geralt for season four, and potentially beyond.

“My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures,” Cavill wrote on Instagram in October of last year. “Alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4.”

Matt Dinerstein/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images

Jesse Lee Soffer, Chicago P.D.

Original castmember Jesse Lee Soffer turned in his badge in 2022, saying goodbye to his beloved character Detective Jay Halstead role after 10 seasons.

“To create this hour drama week after week has been a labor of love by everyone who touches the show,” Soffer said in a statement after his final appearance in the NBC procedural’s Oct. 5 episode. “I will always be proud of my time as Det. Jay Halstead.”

JoJo Whilden/SHOWTIME

Damian Lewis, Billions

After five seasons, Damian Lewis departed Showtime’s Billions in Oct. 2021.

Fox

Emily VanCamp, The Resident

In Aug. 2021, it was reported that Emily VanCamp hung up her stethoscope for good as she had exited Fox’s The Resident.

The CW

Madeleine Mantock, Charmed

One of the Charmed ones is saying goodbye. Madeleine Mantock, who has played eldest sister Macy for three seasons, is exiting the CW’s Charmed reboot ahead of season four. She said it was her “difficult decision” to leave and thanked producers for supporting her choice. 

NBC

Megan Boone, The Blacklist

Turns out Elizabeth Keen never will find out the truth about Raymond Reddington’s identity. Megan Boone chose to leave NBC’s The Blacklist at the end of season eight, and of course her character was killed off before she had the chance to read the letter that would have revealed everything. Boone marked the end of Liz’s journey with an Instagram post in which she called the experience “a dream.” 

LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX

Rege-Jean Page, Bridgerton

Season two of Bridgerton will be down one duke. Rege-Jean Page became the breakout star of Netflix’s massive hit drama, and then broke hearts all over the place when it was announced that he would not be returning for the second season. However, fans can rest a little easier knowing he wouldn’t have been the star anyway, as the second season is shifting focus (as the books do) to Anthony Bridgerton, played by Jonathan Bailey. Meanwhile, Page is starring in high-profile Netflix movie The Grey Man with Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling, so we’ll be seeing him again soon no matter what. 

CW

Ruby Rose, Batwoman

Rose played the titular role of Batwoman, aka Kate Kane, in the CW drama. She made her debut in 2018’s Arrowverse crossover and then starred in one season of the series—making history as the first lesbian superhero to headline their own show, as Batwoman came out of the closet in a major TV moment—before announcing her exit just two days after the season one finale aired. The role was eventually replaced with Javicia Leslie as Ryan Wilder, a new character set to take control of the Batcave in season two. 

Later on in season two, Kate got a bit of a face swap and returned played by Wallis Day.

NBC

America Ferrera, Superstore

America Ferrera decided to exit Superstore at the end of season five, leaving Cloud 9 without a manager and the show without a lead. She ended up appearing in the first two episodes of season six due to the pandemic, and then when season six was deemed the end, she returned for the series finale to give Amy and Jonah (Ben Feldman) the happy ending they deserved. 

Syfy

Jason Ralph, The Magicians

In the season four finale of the Syfy series, Ralph’s character Quentin completed his quest to save Eliot (Hale Appleman), but sacrificed himself in the process. While the show does feature dead characters—it’s called The Magicians after all—Ralph did not return for the fifth and final season.

CW

Emily Bett Rickards, Arrow

Ahead of the final season, Arrow’s Rickards announced her exit in a poem of sorts.

“Felicity and I
are a very tight two
But after one through seven
we will be saying goodbye to you,” she wrote.

She did, however, return for a guest appearance in the show’s series finale.

AMC

Lauren Cohan, The Walking Dead

Cohan said see you later to The Walking Dead following prolonged contract negotiations. She appeared in a handful of season nine episodes, but after a six-year time jump her character Maggie Greene was nowhere to be seen. Producers were hopeful she’d return in some capacity for season 10, and after her short-lived ABC series Whiskey Cavalier was canceled, they got their wish. Cohan made her grand return in this season’s 16th episode, which aired in October 2020.

AMC

Danai Gurira, The Walking Dead

Hot on the heels of Lauren Cohan and Andrew Lincoln bidding farewell to the zombie drama came Gurira’s exit. After joining the AMC series in season three as the katana-wielding Michonne, she made her last appearance in a season 10 episode which aired in March 2020.

CW

Nicollette Sheridan, Dynasty

A recurring player in season one and series regular in season two, Sheridan starred as the iconic character Alexis Carrington. She announced plans to exit the CW reboot ahead of season three to spend time with her ailing mother.

CBS

George Eads, MacGyver

Eads exited the CBS remake in 2019, midway through season three. At the time, he expressed his desire to leave and spend more time with his family.

Fox

Damon Wayans, Lethal Weapon

Fox’s Lethal Weapon is no stranger to cast exit drama. Clayne Crawford was fired from the series after the second season and his former TV partner Wayans announced his plans to exit the hit drama after the 13-episode third season. “I’m going to be quitting the show in December after we finish the initial 13, so I really don’t know what they’re planning, but that’s what I’m planning,” he said. “I’m a 58-year-old diabetic and I’m working 16-hour days… Murtaugh said, ‘too old for this.'”

Producers didn’t need to work on a replacement plan, though. The show was canceled at the end of season three.

Showtime

Cameron Monaghan, Shameless

Ian Gallagher went to the slammer. When Monaghan left Shameless during its ninth season, his character was locked up. In reality, Monaghan was ready to explore new projects after nine years on the show. But, in a true TV twist, he went ahead and signed on to return for season 10 anyway. He’ll be present and accounted for when the show returns for its 11th and final season in December 2020.

Showtime

Emmy Rossum, Shameless

After nine seasons as Fiona Gallagher, Rossum announced plans to leave Shameless.

“Emmy Rossum will forever be part of the Shameless family,” executive producer John Wells said in a statement. “She has been integral to the show’s success, from her wonderful portrayal of Fiona to her leadership role on set, as well as directing multiple episodes of the series. We are hard at work now creating a season nine finale for Shameless which we hope will provide a Gallagher-worthy sendoff for Fiona that honors the great work Emmy has done. It is always bittersweet when an ensemble member decides to move out of the proverbial house, but our door will always remain open for Fiona to return home for a visit, or to move back in. I look forward to continuing the stories of this wildly unpredictable family and all of us on Shameless will miss Emmy and her wonderful Fiona.”

NBC

Chelsea Peretti, Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Peretti appeared in Brooklyn Nine-Nine when it made its NBC debut, but she didn’t stick around for the whole run. In a series of tweets in 2018, the actress announced her plans to leave the comedy, but maintained she would be back. She even used Emmy Rossum’s farewell letter to Shameless as the basis of her own. Peretti welcomed a son with husband Jordan Peele in 2017. Her character was on maternity leave and sat out several episodes in season five.

AMC

Andrew Lincoln, The Walking Dead

Andrew Lincoln said goodbye to the blood, sweat and dirt of the zombie apocalypse and left The Walking Dead during season nine. “These guys have been the best surrogate family I could have hoped for. But I do have a real family and it is time for me to go home,” Lincoln said at San Diego Comic-Con. He is, however, due to reprise the role in a film trilogy sometime in the future.

Sonja Flemming/CBS

Pauley Perrette, NCIS

After 15 years, Pauley Perrette hung up her lab coat and left NCIS in 2018. “I believe in God and the universe so firmly, and it just suddenly became blindingly apparent that now was the time,” she said. “After a lot of thought, I decided to announce it myself on Twitter because I didn’t want it to be turned into anything ‘shocking. Abby leaving is more than a cheap TV ploy.”

CW

Willa Holland, Arrow

Original cast member Holland’s exit from The CW’s Arrow had been in the works for a while, boss Marc Guggenheim told TVLine. She asked to have her episode count reduced and then to be written out in season six. Her departure just happened to coincide with the return of Thea’s boyfriend, Roy (Colton Haynes), and so they headed off into the sunset together to destroy the dangerous Lazarus Pits that her late father had discovered. 

CBS

Grace Park, Hawaii Five-0

Park, who shot to fame on Battlestar Galactica, left Hawaii Five-0 ahead of its eighth season. She and costar Daniel Dae Kim left after negotiations to reach pay parity with their co-stars failed.

CBS

Daniel Dae Kim, Hawaii Five-0

Kim and his costar Grace Park left the CBS drama in between seasons seven and eight. In a Facebook post, Kim said the choice to leave was difficult, and that he made himself available to come back, but “CBS and I weren’t able to agree to terms on a new contract.”

NBC

Sophia Bush, Chicago PD

Season four of the NBC drama ended with Bush’s character entertaining a job offer in New York with the FBI, taking her out of the titular Windy City. In December 2018, the actress explained that she quit the series after “a consistent onslaught barrage of abusive behavior.”

HBO

T.J. Miller, Silicon Valley

After four seasons on the HBO comedy, Miller departed, calling it an “organic ending.” He told Entertainment Weekly, “Also, in a weird way, it’s interesting to me to leave a show at its height. It’s interesting to me to see how the show will grow and change with the exit of this character.”

CBS

Erinn Hayes, Kevin Can Wait

After just one season on the CBS comedy, there was quite a shakeup afoot. Hayes, who played wife to Kevin James, left as part of a creative shakeup. However, from the sounds of her tweet, it wasn’t a mutual decision. “True, I’ve been let go from the show. Very sad, I had a great experience season 1,” Hayes said on Twitter. “Thank you for all the support from our wonderful fans.”

Kevin then moved on, in a way, with former King of Queens costar Leah Remini. CBS then moved on and canceled the show altogether.

(Originally published May 21, 2018, at 3 a.m. PT)